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And it seemed to her that God heard her prayer. From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own horizon from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented itself.
Well, at any rate, it is possible to imagine the different effect it would show if a little of that large, humane irony, so evident in the tone of the story at the start, had persisted through all its phases. It would not have dimmed Natasha's charm, it would have heightened it.
Princess Mary put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natasha as if she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother's bedroom had strained Natasha's physical strength. One afternoon noticing Natasha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed.
The brief sojourn in this delightful land had brought back all the roses to Natasha's lovely cheeks, and had completely restored both her and the Princess to the perfect health that they had lost during their short but terrible experience of Russian convict life; but towards the end of the month they both began to get restless and anxious to get away to the rendezvous with the steamer that was bringing their friends and comrades out from England.
Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly, compassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face, with its swollen lips, was more than plain it was dreadful. But Prince Andrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful. They heard the sound of voices behind them. Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.
It was plain that at that moment there was in Natasha's heart no thought of herself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew. Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the first glance at Natasha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful pleasure. "Come, come to him, Mary," said Natasha, leading her into the other room.
Arnold laid the little slip of paper down almost reverently, for, few as the words were, they were those of a man who was not only Natas, the Master of the Terror, but also the father of the woman whose love, in spite of his oath, was the object to the attainment of which he held all things else as secondary, and who therefore had the power to crown his life-work with the supreme blessing without which it would be worthless, however glorious, for he knew full well that, though he might win Natasha's heart, she herself could never be his unless Natas gave her to him.
Of course, Natasha's almost girlish question about the air-ship was really a command, which would have been none the less binding had she only had her own beauty to enforce it.
She was Natasha's other self, saving only for the incomparable brilliance of colouring and contrast which the daughter of Natas derived from her union of Eastern and Western blood.
Natasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the background. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider in how far she was to blame for what had happened.
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